He coaxes Amy away from the TV, bribing her with a ride on his shoulders that he feels he’s not making as much fun as it usually is. He helps her undress, and talks her into carrying her dirty clothes to the hamper. He struggles to push all of her strands of hair under a Clifford the Dog shower cap, then lifts her into the shower and heads back to the kitchen.
Rachel is warming something up in a pan on the stove. Her arms crossed, she watches the pan like it’s the most fascinating thing in the room. Which maybe it is to her right now.
‘Amy’s in the shower,’ he says, because he needs to say something even though it does nothing to make him more interesting than the pan.
‘Thanks,’ she says over her shoulder, still not turning, still not facing him.
He leaves her to her thoughts and goes into the bedroom. He starts to do what has to be done.
In the background he hears Amy singing a nursery rhyme. Something about cheeky monkeys and what they get up to on a bed. She can hold a tune too, unlike either of her parents.
He continues with his task, but remains alert to the distant drone of family life. He smiles at Amy’s usual complaints when the shower is turned off before she’s had a chance to flood the floor. Later, he hears the chink of cutlery against plate as she eats, her mother constantly reminding her to take another mouthful. He hears the trip back to the bathroom, the garbled chatter of Amy as she speaks through foam while getting her teeth brushed.
These noises, devoid of interest to anyone else, are precious to Doyle. They represent normality. He bitterly resents having them stripped from him.
Five minutes later Rachel enters the room, a monotone sentence already on her lips. ‘You should say goodnight to your-’
She stops then, as she takes in what she did not expect to see.
‘What are you doing?’
Doyle straightens up, drops a clumsily folded shirt onto the bed. ‘I’m packing, Rach.’
‘Why?’ she demands, the question tainted with hurt and anger.
‘I have to get out of here.’
‘Bit of an over-reaction, wouldn’t you say? I give you one little bit of criticism-’
‘No. Rach. You don’t understand. This has nothing to do with what you said to me earlier. You were totally right about that.’
She gestures at the suitcase on the bed. ‘So, then, why?’
‘I don’t have a choice. In order to protect you, I have to leave. Simple as that.’
She shakes her head. A tiny movement of both disbelief and negation.
Doyle says, ‘Rachel, what happened in the hospital tonight was a warning. The sicko who wants to hurt me was showing us what he could have done for real, to you and Amy. He’s already proved he has no qualms about killing people. We’ve got five dead bodies already. I don’t want to see any more, especially members of my own family. That’s why I have to go, so he’ll leave you alone.’
‘What if I don’t want you to go? What if I think the best way for you to protect us is to be here, by my side? Does my opinion count?’
Doyle sighs. ‘That note the nurse gave me? It wasn’t the first. Whoever’s sending them keeps telling me that anyone I stay in close contact with is in danger. For whatever twisted reasons, he wants me on my own.’
‘Why? I don’t understand.’
‘Me neither. All I know is that I can’t stay here, because he’ll come here too. With me gone, you’re safe.’
She lowers her eyes as she considers his words. When she lifts her gaze again he sees her sadness.
‘How long, Cal? How long are you going to be away?’
He shrugs, then counters his uncertainty with a smile of optimism. ‘We got a lot of people on this. He can’t keep this up for long. I might be moving back in tomorrow night. Keep my side of the bed warm.’
She tries a smile, but it’s a half-hearted attempt that tells him she’s not convinced.
‘Let me say goodnight to Amy,’ he says.
As he brushes past her she touches a finger to his arm.
‘Cal?’
He stops and looks into eyes that are now brimming with tears.
‘I don’t want you to leave,’ she says.
He takes her in his arms then, presses her whole body against him, wishing he could carry this closeness with him when he walks out the door.
Rachel asks, ‘Where will you go?’
‘A hotel. Somewhere I don’t have to mix with people.’
‘That’s a pretty lonely existence. That’s not you, Cal.’
‘It’s for one night. A couple at the most. I’ll call you all the time, I swear.’
She runs a finger under one eye, catching a tear. ‘You’d better, if you know what’s good for you.’
He takes her face in his hands, plants a big kiss on her mouth. ‘Give me five minutes.’
He leaves the bedroom, walks across to Amy’s room. She’s sitting up in bed, looking at a book about something called a Gruffalo.
‘Daddy!’ she says when he walks in.
‘Hi, pumpkin. You ready for sleep yet?’
‘Oh, no. But I am a little bit tired. Is it late now?’
He perches himself on the edge of her bed, and she wriggles over to make more room for him.
‘Yeah, it’s late. I’m going to bed myself soon. I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow.’
‘Catching bad guys?’
‘That’s right: catching bad guys. And it’s going to keep me so busy, I might not even be able to come home for a day or two. What do you think of that?’
She shakes her head emphatically. ‘Not good. I don’t want you to stay away, not even for one day.’
‘I’ll come back home as soon as I can, honey. I promise. Meantime, you be good for Mommy, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she says, begrudgingly. ‘And then maybe when you come back, you can bring me a rabbit?’
‘We’ll see,’ he says. He takes the book from her, tucks her and her toy bears into the bedclothes, then leans over and kisses her on the cheek. ‘Goodnight, Amy.’
‘Night, Daddy.’
He rises from the bed, steps toward the doorway and the light switch.
‘Daddy!’
Amy is sitting bolt upright in bed again, as if awaking from a nightmare.
‘What is it, hon?’
‘Tomorrow is my dance show. I’m getting a medal. You have to be there.’
Shit! The show. He’d forgotten all about it.
‘I, uhm, I’ll do my best, honey, okay? I’ll try to be there, I really will.’
‘You promised.’
‘I know, Amy, I know. Let me see what I can do, okay?’
But he knows he’s not going to be there. And as he repeats his goodnight wish and turns out the light and closes the door, he feels like a complete heel. He feels like the sort of father he swore he would never be. Like his own father, the bastard.
He knows how much little things like this mean to a child. In the grand scheme of things it’s nothing; to a six-year-old girl it’s everything. The empty seat in the theater tomorrow will create a bigger emptiness in her heart — one that he may never fill. He knows this because of all the holes that were opened in his own heart as a kid. They never close over, not fully.
For that alone — never mind all the other things — Doyle swears vengeance. You want to break my daughter’s heart, then go ahead. Just know that when I catch you, I’m gonna tear out your own heart and make you eat it, you fuck.
For what he can afford, the Cavendish Hotel near Union Square seems decent enough, although the reception staff are none too happy about a booking for an indeterminate number of nights, what with all the Christmas shoppers swarming into town at the moment. In the end Doyle stretches himself to a three-night reservation, extracting in return (inequitably, it seems to him) a verbal agreement that the hotel staff will do their utmost to keep the room available for longer if required.
His room is clean, the carpet isn’t too threadbare and the bed isn’t too co
ncave in the middle, but Doyle can’t settle. Things aren’t where he expects them to be. The smells are different; the noises are different. He’s not used to a bathroom without a window, and a view from the bedroom that’s fascinating only if you have a thing for bricks. Worst of all, he’s alone. He cannot reach out for the warmth of his wife in the bed next to him; he cannot lift up his daughter and smell the shampoo in her hair.
Doyle throws his clothes into drawers, then calls Rachel on the phone. He lies about how comfortable he is here, and understates the truth about how much he’s missing his family. After the call he kills some time reading the hotel information brochures, then murders another hour or so staring at the flat-screen TV. It just makes him wonder how long it’ll be before living in a box like this drives him insane.
Despite his tiredness, he is bursting with a high level of contained energy. To release it, he does some sit-ups and push-ups, then takes a shower. But still he feels like a caged lion with claustrophobia.
When he can stand it no longer, he escapes his room and goes in search of the bar.
The bartender is a swarthy Greek called George. Doyle asks him if the hotel has Guinness on tap, but they don’t.
‘Okay, make it a whiskey. Irish. Be as generous as you like.’
When it’s poured, he raises the glass. ‘To absent friends.’
He knocks it back, slams the glass down on the counter. ‘Hit me again, George,’ he says.
And keep on hitting me till I’m numb.
THIRTEEN
When Doyle gets into the squadroom at seven-thirty that morning, he sees that Franklin is already in his office, deep in conversation with the sergeant heading up the midnight tour. As Doyle sits at his desk it’s as though it causes a buzzer to sound somewhere, because he sees the two men raise their heads and look across at him through Franklin’s window. A dead giveaway to Doyle that he’s the subject of their discussion.
Two minutes later, when the sergeant walks out to tidy up the tail end of his tour, Franklin beckons Doyle to enter. Wishing he’d stopped off to buy some Tylenol this morning, Doyle blinks against the pain he experiences with each step toward the lieutenant’s office.
‘You want to talk to me about what happened last night?’ Franklin asks.
Doyle is unsure as to what his boss already knows. So he tells him everything. Finishes by placing the latest letter from the killer on Franklin’s desk.
Franklin coasts a hand over his thinning hair. ‘Shit, Cal! What a fucking mess.’
It’s something Doyle can’t deny, so he doesn’t even try.
Franklin says, ‘You sure Rachel and Amy are safe? We need to send some uniforms over?’
Doyle considers this. He knows that Rachel would hate the idea. ‘No. I think they’re okay. I’ve done what that bastard wanted.’ He pauses. ‘You hear anything on the victim?’
‘A hooker from the West Side. From what you’ve just told me, it was probably only the fact that she didn’t look a whole lot different from your wife that got her killed. Shitty reason to die.’ He blows air in exasperation. ‘This’ll hit the desks of the brass this morning, Cal. You know I can’t sit on it. Somebody’s gonna make a connection, somebody else is gonna make a recommendation, and I’m gonna get a phone call.’
‘How long do I have?’
‘Who knows? Hours? Minutes? To be honest with you, Cal, I’m not even sure I’m doing the right thing waiting for that call.’
Doyle leans forward, rests his arms on the edge of the lieutenant’s desk. ‘Mo, please don’t pull me off this just yet. Not until you have no choice. I can’t be pacing a hotel room while all this is going on.’
Franklin picks up a pencil, taps it on the arm of his chair while he considers his next move.
‘You don’t look well to me, Cal.’
Doyle blinks. Does he look so obviously wrecked?
Franklin says, ‘I think maybe you should have called in sick today, at least for this morning. Maybe you’ll feel better around, say, after lunch, when I’m in meetings at 1PP.’
It dawns on Doyle then. He’s just been given a pass.
‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I do feel kinda nauseous.’ Which isn’t that far from the truth.
He gets out of his chair and moves toward the door. ‘Thanks, Mo.’
Franklin waves him away. ‘Get out of here before I catch whatever it is you got. An affliction like that could be the death of an old guy like me.’
The five-story tenement building on Suffolk Street in the Lower East Side stinks of piss and stale cooking. On the second floor, Doyle pounds his fist on the door of apartment 2A for the fifth time.
A few yards away, a neighboring door opens and yellow light spills out into the dark hallway. A huge black woman in an indecently short nightdress steps out as if entering the spotlight on a stage. Doyle waits for her to start singing.
‘Hey! You ever think of using the damn doorbell?’
‘It ain’t working,’ Doyle says, and pounds again.
‘Hey, hey! Your momma ever show you how to knock on a door? Politely, I mean. Like this.’ With surprising grace, she extends a pudgy knuckle and raps lightly on her own door. ‘You see?’ she says quietly. ‘These apartments ain’t so big. Don’t need no sledgehammer to make yourself heard.’ She straightens up, raises her voice again. ‘Now show some consideration, you damn ignoramus.’ She hefts her bulk back into her apartment and slams the door with a force that is sure to wake up the whole building.
Doyle sighs and raises his fist again, holding it poised in the air when he hears the locks being taken off.
The door opens, and Doyle is greeted by a face that is less animated than many he’s viewed in the morgue.
‘Jesus, Spinner. It’s like waking the dead. You always sleep through people taking your door off its hinges?’
Spinner pries open one encrusted eyelid. ‘I need my beauty sleep. Ugly lunk like you could do with a bit more of it yourself.’
Doyle says, ‘You waiting for me to produce a bottle of wine before you invite me in?’ but then doesn’t linger for an answer before pushing the door open wider and stepping over the threshold.
The living room is a wreck. Unwashed dishes everywhere. Dark stains on the table and the carpet. There’s a smell of blocked drains. In various stacks on the floor are collections of items that Spinner hasn’t fenced yet — DVD players, GPS units, game consoles — all neatly packaged in brown cartons. Stamped onto each of the boxes is the outline of a squat-bodied bird with a long tail, sitting on a branch.
‘Christ, Spinner, how can you live like this?’
He steps over some boxed hi-fi speakers and heads toward the bedroom.
‘Hey!’ Spinner says. ‘Did you hear me say you could go in there? Hey!’
Doyle opens the door, and takes one brief look at the chaos inside before his eyes alight on the bedside table. On top of the table is a length of rubber tubing and an empty hypodermic syringe.
He turns back to Spinner, closing the bedroom door behind him.
‘No wonder I couldn’t get you out of bed. You got wasted last night, didn’t you?’
Swaying on his feet, his eyes half-closed, Spinner shrugs. ‘What’s it to ya? You looking to bust me for it?’
Doyle advances on him, grabs him by the bicep of his good arm, drags him into the bathroom. He kicks aside a mound of damp towels, then reaches for the shower control and turns it on full blast.
Spinner says, ‘Cal! What you doing, man?’
Doyle brings his other hand to the nape of Spinner’s neck and pushes his head into the jet of water.
‘Cal!’ Spinner yells, then splutters and coughs. ‘That’s fucking freezing, dude. Cut it out! Cut it out!’
Spinner struggles, but Doyle holds him there for a full minute, ignoring the protests. Finally, he releases him and steps away, trembling with his own fury. Spinner whirls himself out of the spray, and flattens himself against the cracked wall tiles as he sucks air back into his lungs.
Doyle picks up a towel and does what he can to dry his hands on the sodden fabric. He throws it at Spinner.
‘Dry yourself off.’
He leaves Spinner there and moves back into the living room. He rests his hands on the back of a wooden chair as he tries to calm himself. A minute later, he hears Spinner enter the room behind him.
‘You didn’t have to do that.’
Doyle pushes himself off the chair and turns around. ‘Look at yourself. Look at this fucking shit-heap of an apartment. Look at what you do.’ He kicks an empty cardboard box, sending it sailing across the room. ‘Selling stolen toys so you can pump more crap into your veins. What kind of life is that, Spin?’
Spinner rubs the towel under his chin. ‘It’s my life. Not yours. Mine. You don’t have to live it.’
‘And you do? Jesus, Spinner, what happened? What went wrong? You could have had a lot better than this.’
Spinner snorts a humorless laugh. ‘Yeah, I coulda been a contender.’
Doyle closes the distance between them, and for a brief instant he feels like he’s about to slap Spinner across the face. His hand comes up, but instead of striking him he takes a fistful of his grimy T-shirt.
‘It’s no joke, Spinner. It’s sad. It’s pathetic. There was a time I looked up to you. I actually wanted to be like you. And now you’re just … you’re just a…’
‘A cripple.’
Doyle stares at him. ‘What?’
‘Go ahead, say it. I’m a cripple, an invalid — whatever term you want to use.’
‘No, that’s not what-’
‘It’s okay. Say it. Everybody else does. I hear ’em. They make jokes about me. You think I don’t know what I used to be? You’re right, I was good. I really think I could have been one of the best fighters in the country, maybe even the world. But do I have to take all the blame for what I am now? No, I don’t think so. Doesn’t matter how many times I run through my history, looking at all the stupid things I did, I can’t find nothing explains why I had to be punished like this. So go ahead. Criticize me all you want. You don’t want to deal with me no more, find yourself another sewer rat for your information. There’s plenty other cops want what I got to sell.’
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